"Adobe Flash Player 'Square' is a preview release that enables native 64-bit support on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows operating systems, as well as enhanced support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 beta. We have made this preview available so that users can test existing content and new platforms for compatibility and stability."

In the same way that HTML5, CSS3, SVG, animated SVG and ECMAscript are not only for reading video, do you mean?

Given the soon-to-be-realised presence and performance of HTML5, CSS3, SVG, animated SVG, Canvas and ECMAscript, the poor performance of Flash, and the absence of Flash on some platforms such as iPad and some phones, it could easily become the case that rich web content moves quite rapidly away from Flash to a new standards platform comprising: HTML5, CSS3, SVG, animated SVG, Canvas, fast ECMAscript and other emerging technologies like Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation and geo location.

Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geo location, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web. With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform.

Inacurate, flash is still relevant for features that html5 won't provide.
The fact that flash is not available on some platform where html5 is, is more a vendor/implementor choice (I have been living with a non html5 cell phone, that have flash).
I'm not in favor of putting flash everywhere, but people should not view html5 as the messiah that could save the web (it's way too late for that and it wasn't about flash ).
html5 is in my point of view a trojan horse for pushing more mpeg4 video ( remember that licence are free as long as you don't earn money from your video), and the alternative to mpeg4 video are not available on the apple platforms .

Inacurate, flash is still relevant for features that html5 won't provide. The fact that flash is not available on some platform where html5 is, is more a vendor/implementor choice (I have been living with a non html5 cell phone, that have flash). I'm not in favor of putting flash everywhere, but people should not view html5 as the messiah that could save the web (it's way too late for that and it wasn't about flash ). html5 is in my point of view a trojan horse for pushing more mpeg4 video ( remember that licence are free as long as you don't earn money from your video), and the alternative to mpeg4 video are not available on the apple platforms .

Your opinion on what HTML5 is or is not for will have absolutely nothing to do with its adoption.

This isn't just about HTML5, there are a whole raft of standards technologies that work together to create a platform that is far more powerful, and (which will be) ubiquitous, than the one-lump-plugin solutions such as Flash and Silverlight.

There are indeed a few things that are not available in HTML5, but happily they are addressed in HTML5/CSS3/DOM/Canvas/SVG/fast ECMAscript et al.

There will be no shortage of tools to write for the HTML5/CSS3/DOM/Canvas/SVG/fast ECMAscript platform either:

I think it is too early to say that. I have yet to see a javascript game that has the quality and fun level of the best ArmorGames and Kongregate games around. And the reason is obvious : non-Flash technologies are for geeks.

If there was an IDE as good as Flash for standard web technologies, maybe the level would improve. But it is not the case. And even technology-speaking, HTML5 implementations are far from reaching the already poor performance of Flash, which has the obvious advantage of years of experience with slow computers (though only those running windows).

Maybe Native Client will do the trick, by getting rid of interpreted code altogether. But then I fear that the result will suffer Java-like insanely slow startup performance, while the program's code is being translated to native insert_your_platform_here code.

In short, there is still a lot to do before web standards are a serious competitor to Flash. And that's fine, too, as long as somebody else gets Adobe's ass kicked so that they continue to work on making Flash less of a nightmare like they did with 10.1...

I think it is too early to say that. I have yet to see a javascript game that has the quality and fun level of the best ArmorGames and Kongregate games around. And the reason is obvious : non-Flash technologies are for geeks. If there was an IDE as good as Flash for standard web technologies, maybe the level would improve. But it is not the case.

And even technology-speaking, HTML5 implementations are far from reaching the already poor performance of Flash, which has the obvious advantage of years of experience with slow computers (though only those running windows).

Where did you get this from?

Maybe Native Client will do the trick, by getting rid of interpreted code altogether. But then I fear that the result will suffer Java-like insanely slow startup performance, while the program's code is being translated to native insert_your_platform_here code. In short, there is still a lot to do before web standards are a serious competitor to Flash. And that's fine, too, as long as somebody else gets Adobe's ass kicked so that they continue to work on making Flash less of a nightmare like they did with 10.1...

Did you realise that most modern javascript engines in browser are actually compilers? I have been told that the jargon for this is "method JIT".

Examples are Google's V8, Apple's nitro, the new Jaegermonkey engine in Firefox, and even the new engine in the IE9 beta, which AFAIK is called Chakra.

Introducing “Chakra”, the new JavaScript engine
Script engine performance is just one part of the overall browser performance picture. Script performance in Internet Explorer 8 improved exponentially over that of Internet Explorer 7, and “Chakra”, the new JavaScript engine in Internet Explorer 9 Beta, does it again. The Chakra engine interprets, compiles, and executes code in parallel and takes advantage of multiple CPU cores, when available. For more details, see the IE Team Blog.

As for the "start-up penalty" ... perhaps you haven't considered the implications of provisions such as Firefox's new "App Tabs" feature:

There’s a new feature coming to Firefox 4 that creates a new kind of browser tab known as an “App Tab”. The idea behind App Tabs is that some web sites are more like applications than web pages, such as Google Docs, webmail, Twitter, and web-based feed readers. These are sites that people often keep open all the time, and App Tabs makes that easier and more efficient to do.

For these "App Tabs", the underlying code will only ever have to be downloaded and re-compiled when it changes.

Given the soon-to-be-realised presence and performance of HTML5, CSS3, SVG, animated SVG, Canvas and ECMAscript, the poor performance of Flash, and the absence of Flash on some platforms such as iPad and some phones, it could easily become the case that rich web content moves quite rapidly away from Flash to a new standards platform comprising: HTML5, CSS3, SVG, animated SVG, Canvas, fast ECMAscript and other emerging technologies like Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation and geo location.

A great deal of the "poor" perforce in flash is from flash designers who either half ass code our don't understand how to code properly and efficiently. People will still be able to write bloated crap in any technology.

ActionScript in flash is just a dialect of ecmascript. ActionScript 3.0 has grown into to a very nice language. I have already seen some frameworks that started out in flash like caurina ported to JavaScript and .Net. Useful tools are useful tools and many of these technologies and high level languages are not radically different from each other.

I am happy to see flash get some competition. Adobe will either make Flash a better product or it will shift the Flash IDE into being a tool to develop for this new suite of media technologies. Open alternatives to flash are a good thing, but Flash itself is not a bad thing... It is just a tool.

I am happy to see flash get some competition. Adobe will either make Flash a better product or it will shift the Flash IDE into being a tool to develop for this new suite of media technologies.

The Flash IDE has already been adapted by Adobe into being a tool to develop for this new suite of media technologies. Perhaps Adobe has seen the writing on the wall.

Open alternatives to flash are a good thing, but Flash itself is not a bad thing... It is just a tool.

No, Flash is a bad thing. It comes from a sole-source supplier, and it is delivered in binary form only. That puts the sole-source supplier in a position to determine which platforms do get support, and which do not. If Flash were the only option, that would put Adobe into the position that they could decide, for example, if ARM platforms could have a Flash binary available, or if Adobe wanted to provide only binaries for Atom and other Intel CPUs, but not AMD and ARM for example.

If a new player, such as ARM, wanted to enter a market that involved displaying rich content delivered via the Internet, Adobe could say yay or nay. That lets Adobe put their own price on the provision of Flash for ARM devices.

I mean, imagine if Apple decide to put a new ARM-based chip of their own design into the iPad and that Apple sought Flash support for it? I could see where Adobe might want to charge Apple a fortune, and I could see that Apple might not be too happy with being held to ransom by Adobe ...

Oh, wait.

That whole situation is a very bad thing. Sole-source suppliers for any piece of critical technology is a very, very bad thing.